Fri, 22 Feb 2019 01:04:34 -0500WeeblyTue, 04 Dec 2018 05:08:00 GMThttp://www.electroniccottage.org/tom-furgas/trio-for-flute-guitar-and-celloThis trio was also composed, recorded, and mixed down with my Mixcraft programs. As with the other pieces that appear on this EC page it uses sampled instrument sounds. This piece was done with the intention of being as melodic and tonal as possible. Mostly, it is modal, with various shifts in mode and tonality, but avoiding atonal and abrupt effects. Done largely as a respite from the more challenging atonal and disjunct pieces I'd been doing. But I definitely wanted to avoid the usual, boring "New Wave" sound that would be normally associated with "pretty" tonal music with this instrument combination.

This piece was composed and recorded with Mixcraft Pro Studio 6 and mixed down with Mixcraft 7. All sounds are those of sampled, "virtual", instruments. This piece was created by composing short sections of music of different tempos and time signatures, directly abutted to each other, mixed and matched with no particular organization other than the desire to make the transitions as abrupt as possible. Ken Clinger has likened this piece to a View Master or a slide show, with the individual segments changing unexpectedly. Many segments reoccur, altered or unaltered, as the piece progresses. Generally tonal, but with many atonal elements, again with the emphasis on unexpected changes and shifts of perspective.

"Orchestra Piece 2018" was composed and recorded with Mixcraft Pro Studio 6 and mixed down with Mixcraft 7. It was composed with "virtual" (sampled) instrument sounds, all done on the computer. Scored for flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns, trumpets, trombones, percussion, and strings. My goal with this piece was to create a work that was as idiomatically "orchestral" as possible using sampled instruments. With sampled instruments it is easy to do a lot of things that a "real" orchestra would never do, and I wanted to avoid that. It required a lot of study and understanding of the way the various sections of the orchestra interact, and kinds of melodic contours and voicings that one hears in orchestral pieces. For example, I avoided "quantizing" the rhythms which would have made them so tight they they'd sound like they were done on a computer. Some of the entrances of choirs of instruments are staggered slightly, as is usually heard in even the most tightly rehearsed ensembles. The harmonically astringent and rhythmically disjunct sound of my work was inspired by the atonal "classical" music of the post-war period (late 1940's onward).